I have received email info URC that they are now shipping MX-700's as of today.

The manual is now at [Link: universalremote.com]

The software is now at [Link: universalremote.com]

By the way, the manual's got nothing to do with the software and is just a cursory overview of the remotes. Just download the software to really see what you can do with the MX-700.

P.S. - There is an MX Editor manual coming next week.

This message was edited by MikeSRC on 05/10/02 17:25.04.

Software already downloaded and installed.

1st impressions from playing with the software-

likes:
-abilite to "hide" unused pages
-ability to label lcd quickle with the lcd editor
-punch throughs on volume, transport, channel and numbers
-ability to import/edit macros
-ability to drag and drop devices from one position to another and all labels, codes, macros, move with it
-ability to include buttons other than numbers in the FAV macros
-ability to save everything to one .mxf file
-ability to import/export a single device from/to a .mxd file

dislikes:
-lack of codes in the IR database (only one of my components is listed and I have fairly common newer equipment)
-Navigator window on the left is earlily similar to the MX-1000 designer software. Gave me a bad flashback.


anyone else care to comment?

-NJJ

I've played around with it and if one has programmed a Pronto, as I have, you pick it up right away. It seemed real slick but I wish the MX-700 picture cound be zoomed in to make it bigeer.

1. I did an update and it seemed to take a long time DL'ing with my DSL, was it loading new devices?

2. How does one find, say, a Pioneer DV-37 DVD players codes?

Jim

This message was edited by Jim Christian on 05/10/02 17:58.04.

Oh yeah, Mike,

When will it be on your web site at http://www.surfremotecontrol.com/

Jim

Software looks good! Now, I gotta find a credit card with some spending room left...

Software looks pretty good overall. A couple of comments in random order, and focussing on things which haven't already been mentioned.

1) I didn't find an "easy" way to populate the favourites macros. It looks like you have to click on the button you want to populate, then go to main, then tv/satellite, whatever, and then click on the number buttons. Seems a step backwards from the MX-500, actually.

2) Overall look and feel is a bit "off" - fonts used in dialog boxes and so forth don't fit the modern Windows look-and-feel. Not a biggie, though.

3) Unlike some comments above, the IR database looked pretty good to me. I particularly liked that the LCD buttons appear to be correctly labelled - of course, confirming this would require an actual MX-700.

Overall, it looks like a lot of thought has been put into making it possible to configure a remote *quickly*.

1. Updates have always been rather slow.

2. Code database will probably continue to be sparse (depending on which components you own) until the remotes are out and files are updated. My personal pet peeve is the lack of complete commands under the Tivo code.

3. If your device isn't listed by name, another one of the device or generic codes may work, or not. Again, you'll need the remote to find out.

Sure is easy to use though, isn't it?

Jim,

The files are available at the links in the top of this thread.

1) Live Update downloads any firmware, IR database and program changes. It isn't the fastest download, but it is a whole lot quicker than waiting for a CD containing a new version of the software, or downloading the firmware or IR database upgrades and manually installing them.

This message was edited by GregoriusM on 05/10/02 20:19.54.

The IR database will be continually updated, especially after .mxd files (device files) are submitted by programmers, with the appropriate codes, that can be added by URC to the main database.

1) Once you have "populated" your FAVs, they can be exported as an .mxd file. Custom programmers will generally have an .mxd file for each sat, cable, over-the-air service in their area, that will be easy to load into a configuration.

2) A lot of time was spent on figuring out the easiest ways for custom installers to be able to quickly program the remote.

Macros:

1) Macros are in fact available on the hard buttons. They just have to exist on an LCD button and then be aliased to the hard button.

2) When pressing a device button to get into a device, any macro on the device will fire immediately. To get into the device without firing the macro, just hold MAIN and the DEVICE button.

Or, you can put a delay at the beginning of the device macro (I use .3 seconds), so that you can get in and out of the device without firing the macro. If you want the macro to fire, just hold the button for the delay time, in my case .3 seconds. Works great!

3) If you need the same macro in more than one place, you can copy the entire macro using "Import Macro".

It would be nice if you weren't limited to 5 characters per button label. Instead, there should
be a line limit of 10 chars, so on one line you could have a label of say 3 chars on one side, and 6 on the other.....

It looks like (I may be wrong) that you can't have more than 4 pages per device. Is that so?

Greg, is there any way to move IR-database functionality from one hard button to another? It looked to me like you can alias buttons any way you want, but the command has to exist on another button. Is this right?

As for the favourites, I agree that for a custom installer doing a lot of these, it's probably bearable the way it is - but it would be nice to see a wizard for this the way the TheaterTouch software has - you click on a favourite button and type in a channel number. Oh well, there needs to be something to add for V2, I guess. :-)

This message was edited by David Harrison on 05/10/02 20:55.32.